THE VAULT IS OPEN

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We became purely digital; to maximize cooling efficiency we slept until the universe finished expanding; we never expected it feel so alone.

As of 2017, Earth has not yet found any traces of extraterrestrial intelligence, and the questions raised by Enrico Fermi’s Paradox continue to generate multiple hypotheses. Jonathan Twain takes the Aestivation Hypothesis and imagines the world from the perspective of the extraterrestrial societies. Aestivation suggests that advanced civilisations not only exist but have become purely digital. They are waiting in hibernation and will awaken at a time when they can maximize the computational strength of their society – the Big Chill. But will they be the only society left?//Alex Massey